Tiny house festival goes big in St. Johns County

ELKTON | The tiny-house enthusiasts gathered this weekend at the St. Johns County Fairgrounds say their itty-bitty homes leave them feeling liberated, not squished.

Just listen to Renee McLaughlin, who rents out her old 3,300-square-foot house and has downsized to an 87 square-foot micro-house she parks on her family’s property in rural southeast Iowa: "I just paid off a credit card. I have no rent, no utilities, no water. Well, not much water. I have a tiny garbage can it takes me three weeks to fill."

Now she travels to tiny house festivals around the country — the number is growing — to sell T-shirts made of recycled material, with the logos "Tiny on!" and "Tread lightly and tiny on!" That gives her enough money, she said, to live, liberated.

The first Florida Tiny House Festival has about 90 tiny houses, including small houses on wheels, converted school-buses, a converted shipping container, a converted horse trailer, vintage campers, teardrop trailers and a yurt.

Some tiny-house people don’t consider alternate structures to be tiny houses, but the United Tiny House Association, which is putting on the festival, is pretty open-minded.

"If it’s tiny, we support your decision to be tiny," John Kernohan, chairman of the group, said Friday, the first day of the event.

One thing about the festival is big: He said he registered it with the Guinness World Records for the largest gathering of tiny (under 500 square feet) structures on record.

"This thing’s turned into a monster," he proclaimed.

The event goes on at the fairgrounds from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $20.

Tiny houses are huge, at least in interest. It’s hard to turn on a TV without seeing a tiny house show somewhere.

Indeed, HGTV will be there Saturday to film the unveiling of a house whose construction has been followed by film crews for its "Tiny House, Big Living" show. And Derek (Deek) Diedricksen, who hosted that network’s "Tiny House Builders," will be keynote speaker at the event that day.

Adam Lehman of Davenport, south of Orlando, built this TV house, which he’s selling for $95,900. It’s a 270-square foot place, on wheels, with plenty of custom, upscale features. It even has a washer-dryer, custom stained glass, sliding pocket doors, 18 windows and a tumbled marble tile shower.

He said some tiny-house people who favor more spartan settings aren’t happy about the way some tiny houses are getting bigger and fancier. "Some people will walk through this and hate it. They’ll say, ‘This is just so over the top, we don’t need this much room.’"

But he figures it’s all part of the spectrum.

On the other end of the spectrum is Brian Kennedy of Charlotte, N.C., who set up a table to offer free advice on designing tiny houses. He’s 6-foot-8, but he figures all he needs is the 137-square feet house he’s building out of reclaimed, repurposed materials.

That reduces waste — an interest of his —and saves money. He already has most of the materials he’ll need. "And I have spent $354.99 thus far," he said.

Jenni Edwards, a builder in Atlantic Beach, founded Norsk Tiny Houses, which was showing off its first building, a 208-square-foot house that was a hit at the recent home show in Jacksonville. She dreams of building a community of tiny houses in North Florida, once governments can be persuaded that they’re not a blight on the landscape. That could happen soon, perhaps first in Suwannee County, she said.

Tiny-house people talk a lot about zoning restrictions that sometimes require some creative steps to get around. It varies from place to place, they say. Sometimes that works out: The zoning department in St. Johns County, for example, said it doesn’t have anything on the books requiring a house of a certain size. So it goes by state guidelines, which call for a structure of at least 170 square feet — pretty tiny.

Brian and Beth Ann Bukowczyk live full-time in a solar-powered, 34-foot 1988 Bluebird school-bus they’ve fitted out, quite comfortably, for 124 square feet of living space. That’s room enough for a composting toilet, a kitchen, a bedroom, a TV, computer and four guitars. And room for Blutheir dog. They even tow a two-toned 1972 VW Bug behind it.

They’re nudists, so they’ve been living at Florida nudist colonies the last four years, doing odd jobs to pay their minimal expenses. They’d like to head out west sometime soon, and probably will, in their bus.

Bad times a few years ago forced the move to the bus, after they lost their house in Hudson, north of Tampa.

"We went through bankruptcy and foreclosure, so this is plan B," Brian Bukowczyk said.

Their bus is called Peace of Mind, with a peace sign standing in for the first word. It fits, they say. Living this way leaves you with much more time than you’ve ever had before, he said, and she said she’s healthier, happier and less stressed. He even took the opportunity to grow out his hair, well past his shoulders.

"The only regret we have," he said, "is that we didn’t do this sooner."

Matt Soergel: (904) 359-4082

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.

Advertising

Stay Connected

Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted.
The Florida Times-Union ~ 1 Riverside Ave., Jacksonville, FL 32202 ~ Privacy Policy ~ Terms Of Service